1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunication, and more particularly, to the field of data communication that is using Multi-Parts.
2. Description of Background Art
During the recent years, with the immense expansion of the Internet and devices used to access the same, there has been a significant increase in the usage of data communications. For example, there are many users that rely on the use of data communication while using a Browser application to surf the network and to retrieve information embedded within web pages stored in one or more servers. A common data communication session can be based on a data communication protocol, such as but not limited to, the Internet Protocol (IP). A “Web page” is a file or document created for use in the World Wide Web environment (hereinafter, “Web”). Web pages are typically located using a “URL,” or Uniform Resource Locator, which is a form of address adapted for use in the distributed network environment of the Web. Web pages are typically encoded in a Markup Language (ML) such as but not limited to, Hyper Text Markup Language, or (HTML), Extensible Markup Language (XML), Wireless Markup Language (WML), XHTML, etc. Some of those languages can be used by cellular devices. A browser is a software application at a user device that is adapted to process Web documents.
In addition to web pages, other content pages may be created by using Markup Languages. Those pages can be used over private networks, portals, organizational servers, etc. Henceforth, the description of the present invention may use the term ‘web page’ as a representative term for any of the above group.
A common Web page includes a plurality of links to other pages or information. Some of the links are associated with objects of text as well as graphics, images, sound files, and perhaps video that belongs to the same web page. Usually those links are selected automatically by the browser while processing the current web page. The discloser of this application refers to those links as browser's links. Other links may be associated with other web pages, which are selected by the user according to his preference. Those links are referred to as user's links.
Designers of web pages often times use browser links for associating or accessing certain objects of a web page instead of placing these objects in their location in the page or embedding them within the web page. Using browser links increases the flexibility for making subsequent changes or modifications to the page. For example, replacing a certain image on a browser link based web page can be accomplished simply by changing the appropriate browser link. However, using browser links increases the downloading time of a web page. The downloading time is increased because for each browser link, obtaining the object(s) that is associated with the browser link requires additional requesting processes with a server that is indicated by the browser link. The effect of the increased download time, which is due to fetching the objects associated with the browser links (or rendering the links), is further increased and problematic when the downloading is performed over a connection with a low transfer rate. Similarly, another disadvantage of a browser link based web page is when the transfer is conducted over an expensive connection.
To over come the disadvantages of retrieving or rendering browser links by the browser, there are web pages that are configured to include objects that are pointed to by browser links. These objects are added to the web page and the web page is configured according to the Multi-Part Internet Mail Extensions (“MIME”) standard. The HTTP header of such a web page may include, for example, the content type “multipart/mixed” to indicate that a multipart message is mixed with the page. There are browser applications, such as but not limited to Openwave® Mobile Browser (a trademark of Openwave Systems Inc.) or Opera Mobile Browser (a trademark of Opera Software ASA), which are adapted to process multipart pages. Usually these browsers and web pages are utilized in a cellular platform, such as but not limited to the Nokia 6630 or the SonyEricson P800, etc. However, the present invention is not limited to surfing by using cellular platform only.
More information on MIME can be found in RFC (Request for Comments) 1521, “MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part One: Mechanisms for Specifying and Describing the Format of Internet Message Bodies” and RFC 1522, “MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part Two: Message Header Extensions for Non-ASCII Text”, which are incorporated herein by reference. Additional information can be found in the following websites: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2387.html; http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc1341/7—2_Multipart.html; http://rfc.net/rfc1521.html or http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1521.html; http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2045.html; http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2046.html; http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2110.html. The content of those websites is herein incorporated by reference.
During a particular surfing session, one or more browser links may be presented at two or more locations of the same web page, or may also appear in another web page. In such a case, if a multipart page is used, a transmitted web page or consecutive web pages may include one or more objects that are associated with those repeated links. As such, some or all of these objects may already be stored in a cache of the surfing device from a previous web page or previous location in the same web page.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and a method for identifying multipart objects that may be stored in a cache of a surfing device and then to remove those repeated multipart objects from a multipart web page that is currently being transmitted to the user. Furthermore, an alternate system may be adapted to learn and estimate the size of the cache of the current surfing device. Based on this estimation, a decision can be made whether to remove a multipart object or not.